The Walking Dead Is Back!

Holy crap, Sheriff Grimes and the gang are back. And this time, it isn’t just zombified little girls that he’ll be shooting in the head. It’s actual real live people!

Before we get to the massacre at the bar, can we just revisit where we left off before the hiatus for a second? Because the writers of the Walking Dead apparently want us all to remember the nightmares they gave us after the mid-season finale. Good lord. It’s effective, but I’m kind of done staring at that hole in Sophia’s head.

While not a ton actually happened in this first ep back, it was nice to have a teeny bit of a breather from the break-neck action that lead up to the zombie massacre that left us all shaking in our Keds. It was basically like a “Hey, remember how Shane is being an insufferable prig, and Lori’s preggers, and Rick’s a great guy, but he needs to be just a little less nice… well, welcome back! Everybody’s exactly the same.”

Now, I know what they’re doing, and they don’t have me tricked for a second. They did this in a couple episodes in the first season. A ton of crazy crap happens, you spend two episodes white knuckling it, then everything calms down a little bit. You release your kung fu grip on your dog, and you start to think, “Hey, they’re going to be okay. They’ve made some mistakes in the past, but things really seem to be working out for this post-apocalyptic Brady Bunch.”

How are we all such FOOLS!? But it works, every single time. And the crap hits the rotating blades the same way every time: it always starts with a knucklehead mistake. Like T-Dog dropping the key when he’s trying to unlock Merle’s handcuffs, or Otis accidentally shooting Carl. Not until the very end do we see the first BIG DUMB MISTAKE of Season Two, part deux, when Lori heads out to find her husband in the car. Fumbling with the map, she hits a walker and ends up upside down in a ditch.

If they were smart, they’d get OnStar on board to do a little cross promotion.

But that’s just the kind of “I would have done that completely differently if I were in the middle of a Zombiepacolypse” move that sets up a three to four episode escapade into anxiety, terror, and zombies with axes in their faces.

Then, we have, what I think is the most important moment of the ep, and maybe of the entire season. Rick kills the Philly dudes in the bar. I’m not saying he’s going to the dark side, but Rick is definitely growing a pair. Maybe just to make sure that Shane doesn’t try to wedge his way in as team captain.

Here’s what I think is going to happen. And I’m always wrong with this stuff, so feel free to mock me… but, I think the whole Lori car accident thing is going to resolve itself in two or three episodes. I think the group’s going to split up, where half stay at Hershel’s farm to hold down the fort, and the other half set off to find some kind of non-walker strong hold. While the mobile group is gone, the farm’s going to come under a major walker attack, and the group in the field is going to come upon a group of humans who aren’t going to be friendly. Rick’s going to “break bad” a little bit, and either steal supplies from them, or take over the strong hold all together.

The greatest thing about this show is that every time I think I know what’s going to happen, I’m wrong. And that’s why it’s so amazingly rad! And also why I can’t sleep for two nights after each new episode.

What do you think is going to happen in the next episodes of The Walking Dead?